Compare and Contrast

Ersatz (Surogat) - Zagreb Film (1961)

The film displays a poor use of animation, The fundamentals are there as we see many overly cartoony events such as standing in thin air before falling down for ‘comedy’ effect. I find the animation ugly in terms of style, the background wash of orange and blue was nice but the characters were literally stick-men with a shape for a body. The narrative shows an overweight man at the beach and he blows up an inflatable woman who comes to life, however he does not approve of the first woman’s appearance and so deflates her and blows up another, whom is thinner, he then enlarges her breasts. At this point I imagine a lot of people may cry ‘sexism’ but the woman rejects this man and goes off with a more muscular man whom biceps are shown as mountains and he bounces her around between them. This is not sexist, or if it is its certainly sexist to both sexes which in fact makes it not sexist as both sexes are insulted equally. The overweight man then deflates the woman and in despair the muscular man deflates himself, with the couple dead the overweight man packs up and goes home, all of this is done with upbeat music and overly comic effect to tone down the brutal narrative. To conclude the film had zero likeable characters, an insulting narrative to every viewer and a poor use of animation, with the ‘comedy’ coming from exaggerated events and characters misery.

Jiri Trnka, The Hand (1965)

This stop motion animation starts with a happy character who is then forced into working and is overworked. After escaping and barricading himself in his house he dies in his sleep presumably form exhaustion from the ‘the Hand’ he is then given a respectful burial. The whole animation is about the over rule of communism in the Czech republic during the 60's, which was when the film was made. The film displays a very good use of stop motion animation and creative miniatures. With a high level of detail gone into creating the sets, and many hours have clearly been spent thinking about design and how to create such an animation. The film has clearly had a lot more time and effort put into it such as the choice to use very faded colour to display the bleak time and emotion of the character. Also this film would have been very revolutionary and defiant at his time, earning a bit more respect in my eyes. This film has a much deeper context and is far more interesting and frankly displays a much better use and quality of animation. To compare the two films in terms of narrative, animation and characters I feel it’s almost unfair as they are both totally different in every way, however if I were asked the question of a personal preference I would go with The Hand every time.